A Reason for Living - Chapter 6: of a Powerful and Compelling True Story of a Childs Fight for Survival from Abusive Parents

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Chapter 6: Falling
Apart

I regularly played the music almost
full volume in the flat, which did upset some of the neighbours,
while others shouted up for requests to be played. People could
hear the music streets away.

I took very little notice of the
few neighbours who complained until one day one of them tried
bashing my door down. The guy went mad, "Your bloody noise has
cracked all the plaster on my walls. There's lumps of it falling
down off my ceiling. Just look at this," he said, holding out a
handful of bits of plaster. "And I've got a constant
headache."

"Wait there," I said. I went into
the kitchen and returned to the door a few seconds later.

"Here, take two of these for your
headache and here's something for your ceiling." I held out a box
of headache tablets and a box of plaster.

The man knocked them out of my
hand. "I don't think you're very funny. You're just showing off
in front of your stupid brother," the man said angrily. Laurence
went to walk away.

"You needn't run off either, you're
the worst," the mans said. "You play them all day long, from the
minute your brother's out of sight. At least this bleeding
lunatic only blasts them out for a few minutes at a time."

"I don't mind your music loud," he
said, "I actually listen to it myself. I'm just telling you, half
the volume or I'm gonna break your sodding door down and throw
the lot out the sodding window, and you and your stupid brother,
if need be. Ok." I thought the guy was being quite reasonable,
under the circumstances.

"Ok. I'm sorry. You have made your
point and I have been selfish. I will keep it turned down, ok.
Now do you want any of these tablets, because I've got a headache
now?" I said.

Laurence was getting me very angry
at times as while I was at work he was letting dozens of people
into the flat. They would mess about with all the disco
equipment, mess all the records up and didn't show any respect
for the thousands of pounds of equipment. Things were regularly
going missing from the flat and the furnishings were being burned
by cigarettes. I returned home from work one night to find the
flat full of people. There was one kid sat on the arm of the
settee, hitting the sides of it with a motor cycle chain. Another
guy was stood in the middle of the floor holding his face which
was pouring of blood. He had been slashed across the face with a
small Stanley knife. I grabbed the chain off the kid.

"Get the fuck off my settee," I
ordered.

"What's happened here?" I
asked.

"He cut himself shaving," the chain
kid said and started laughing.

"You better shut your mouth," I
said. "I want to know what's happened here and someone better
answer me properly and I mean now! Looks like you've had a real
party in here."

Some kid was sitting behind my
disco deck and put on another record. "You better turn that off
and get the fuck away from my stuff, before I wrap this chain
over your head," I said.

Laurence was sat with some girl on
his lap. "Off," I ordered, talking to the girl, who sat
laughing.

"You let this lot in here," I said
to my brother, "You can tell me what's going on."

I turned to the people trying to
leave the flat, "Sit down. Nobody is going anywhere until I find
out what happened to this guy."

"I cut him," another guy called
out.

"Yeah... Why?"

"You lot can go now,"I said to the
crowed gathering by the door.

I looked at the cut across the guys
face. He was cut from his forehead right down and across his
nose.

"Can you go in the bathroom and
bleed in the sink?" I said. "You're making a right bloody mess in
here."

I looked across the room at the
guilty party, not the sort of guy I wanted to tackle. "So why did
you cut him?" I asked.

"He's been bad mouthing my Missus,"
the guy explained. "I just told him to stop and didn't want any
trouble but he went to pull a big sheath knife, so I cut him with
this." He held a miniature Stanley knife in his hand, but I
didn't want it!

I went to see the slashed face,
bleeding in my bathroom, "Keep your bloody head over the sink.
Look at my sodding flat... Knife!" I held my hand out for the
knife. I wasn't worried about tackling this guy, with or without
the cut face, but definitely without the knife.

"Looks like you all come here
prepared for war, bloody motorbike chain, two knives any more
knocking about?" I said.

"What did you pull a knife on him
for?" I asked, "I bet you won't be so quick next time, will you?"
'Or maybe, you should have been a bit quicker, ' I
thought.

"I think you better get yourself
down the hospital and get your nose stitched back on properly," I
said.

After everyone had left, I had a
few words to say to my brother about the sort of people he was
allowing into the flat. "The main problem is, you don't even know
half these people. It's like you know one or two people but they
are bringing all their mates, who you don't know." Laurence
agreed to only allow his own friends into the flat and to keep a
bit more control.

"And nobody plays on my deck, just
you or me, nobody else. Half my sodding records have gone and the
other half are all scratched up," I told him.

Laurence mixed with people very
easily whereas I had always had great difficulty in mixing with
people. Laurence continued to have people in the flat but
generally speaking they were a little more civilized and the
place didn't get wrecked quite so often. Laurence often had the
place full of people when I got home from work but I still felt
very much alone. He knew quite a few of the girls in the area and
invited many different girls to the flat. Mostly they were just
friends of his, rarely anyone special to him. One night I walked
in to find my brother and about half dozen girls in the flat, one
of whom I had never seen before and I managed to start talking to
her. It had been about a year since I had split up with
Stella.

About two days after our brief
meeting, Marina knocked my door, "I left my bag here the other
day. Can you see if it's still here, please?"

"I found it after you had gone and
put it away. I don't know where you live or I would have dropped
it in to you."

"How long have you known my
brother?" I asked.

"I don't really," she said. "I know
one of the girls who comes up here sometimes. I had only come
over because her mother wanted her and sent me over to tell her.
I had only been here a few minutes when you walked in." I quite
liked the look and sound of this girl.

"Where about do you live?" I asked
inquisitively.

"Just over the road," she
replied.

"I'm going down the pub for an
hour, I'm not sitting here all night. Would you like to come with
me?" I asked. "We can have a chat down there, if you
like."

We went to the local pub for a few
hours and back to my flat. We started kissing in the bedroom but
Marina started to become nervous as I started to run my hand up
her skirt.

"I'm still a virgin," she said
nervously.

"You're joking, seriously, really?"
I smiled, somewhat surprised.

"Honest, I've never done it
before," she said, straight faced, as she wrapped her arms around
me.

"You don't have to do anything if
you don't want to. I won't touch you if you don't want me to," I
told her, "but I must tell you, I want to. I've never done it
with a virgin before."

Marina could see that I meant what
I'd said and was prepared to leave her intact and
untouched.

"I do want to," she said. "Just
don't hurt me, just be gentle, ok."

She was certainly no virgin by
morning and my back had suffered. She clawed all my back but we
both enjoyed every minute of it.

Marina's mother was none too
pleased about what had happened. "You're not on the pill or
anything and I bet he didn't use anything. Did he?" her mother
said anxiously.

"Well, I'm very sorry young lady,
but you're not going over there again until you've been on the
pill long enough for it to have taken effect. He can come to see
you over here if he wants. I just hope you don't find you're
pregnant from this time," she said.

Once Marina was safely protected by
the pill she was allowed to come over to my flat but was not
allowed to stay over night. This didn't stop our sex life at all
but spoiled some of the enjoyment, having to watch the clock.
Sometimes I'd wind the clock back, so that she could stay an
extra half hour. I hated to rush a job that should take time. It
never seemed right to just steal a few hours just to have sex
before taking her back home, half the time with her knickers in
her pocket.

We saw each other daily and I did
grow very fond of Marina and it was a good relationship. Marina
and I liked to go to the occasional restaurant and the occasional
pub and went out whenever we could afford to. Sometimes we just
drove round in the car, to find different and daring places to
make love. We made love in the grounds surrounding the reservoir
and in the grounds of the local hospital and sometimes we just
did it in the car. Occasionally we would make love on her mothers
dining table or on the kitchen floor, while her mother was
watching television, in the lounge, upstairs. I did eventually
tell Marina that I loved her and I meant it, but I still loved
Stella. The feelings I had for Marina were never quite the
same.

I had been working in the
restaurant for about a year when things started going wrong. I
suddenly had my hours cut by nearly half. I was very upset about
this and found it almost impossible to pay my debts on the
suddenly reduced income. The newly appointed manager was
demanding the same amount of work to be done in half the length
of time. It was impossible. I had always worked hard and had
never been seen to be standing around, doing nothing. If the jobs
were not finished by the end of the day, I was required to work
over time without pay. The manager was finding more and more work
for me to do each day, until I was working a ten-hour day for
about six hours pay.

The day came when I had just about
taken enough. I was scrubbing some pans in the kitchen sink and
the manager came over and threw a handful of knives in the sink.
"Hurry up," he ordered, "I want the cold room done."

"Can you put the knives on the side
next time, please?" I said, as a reminder and to point out the
mistake made.

I had previously asked the kitchen
workers not to put the knives in the sink as I couldn't see them
in the water and had sliced my hands a few times. These knives
were very sharp.

A few minutes later the manager
came over and put a large pan on the top, ready to be washed. I
picked it up and dropped it on the floor with an almighty crash.
It was bloody red-hot!

"Bastard," I yelled, not directed
at anyone. Hot pans were always put on the floor so that
accidents like this didn't happen. The manager was fully aware of
this and had always put hot pans on the floor.

"What did you call me?" the manager
asked angrily.

I turned back to the sink.
"Nothing," I said, "I just burned myself on that pan."

The manager spun me around, "Look
at me when you're talking to me. I said, what did you call me?"
he said and then threw another handful of knives in the
sink.

I turned to the sink filled a pan
with greasy, dirty, washing up water and waited. The manager spun
me again and I threw the water all over him and went to the staff
room.

The big boss came into the
staffroom following the complaint. "You're sacked! Get your
things and get out. You have five minutes."

I had been out of work for some
time before starting work in a chip shop on an occasional basis,
where Marina also worked on a part time basis. I did the
occasional disco with Marina at a few pubs and clubs around
Birmingham before giving up the disco game for good. I sold the
estate car to a scrap yard for £15.00. I had saved some money and
bought myself a Ford Escort. I sold most of the disco equipment
and made a huge loss. I used this money to pay for repairs on the
car to get it to m.o.t. standard.

Some trouble broke out one evening
in the chip shop, while I was working. The manager of the shop
lost his temper with a guy who had been kicking the gaming
machine. The manager had told this guy repeatedly to stop kicking
the machine but he took no notice. The manager physically removed
the guy from the shop, who promptly returned and threw a house
brick through the window of the shop. He then ran inside and put
another house brick through a hot food cabinet.

The manager gave chase after the
guy and called out to me, "Phone the police!"

The police came but couldn't catch
the guy. Some days later my flat was burgled and my video and
television were stolen. Unfortunately for me, I couldn't even
report the incident to the police. I had bought these items in
good faith off a guy I thought I knew, for a £100. It turned out
the guy had pinched them from a nearby house. I had some money
put away and managed to replace the items fairly quickly. I had
quite a lot of fairly nice things in the flat and I had the
feeling that the burglars had probably seen me returning to the
flat. I didn't think they had finished the job they had started
and thought they would be back. I secured the flat the best I
could and insured the contents.

Within days the chip shop was also
burgled. My car had been tampered with on a few occasions and I
was beginning to wonder when the trouble was going to end. The
car had a perfectly good alarm installed and wheel locks on all
the wheels but I woke up one morning to find all the doors wide
open and the boot and bonnet. The wheels had been removed and
placed neatly inside the car. I was a little upset but I also saw
a funny side to the pranks. These guys were professional idiots.
They had gone to all that trouble and left over £200.00 worth of
wheels behind! I had no doubts about who was responsible for the
burglary and the car. It was just as if they were trying to make
a point, which they succeeded in doing.

The manager of the shop had
unbreakable glass installed at the chip shop, as he too thought
these guys would return. About a month later, the manager and I
both thought the trouble to be over. We were wrong. My flat was
burgled again. Most of the furniture was stolen and almost
everything that had been left behind, had been destroyed.
Clothing had also been stolen and several items had been slashed
with a knife. This time the two guys had the perfect alibi. They
were both already in prison for more serious crimes, involving
firearms. I knew they were responsible and had sent their mates
to do the job for them. My flat looked as if a hurricane had gone
through it. When the police arrived, I was sat behind the front
door, which was literally hanging off, with a hammer in my hand.
I explained why I had the hammer and showed the police the cut up
clothing. It was sickening! I had no way of closing the door and
was afraid of the burglars returning. The police could see why I
was so worried but stressed that it was very unlikely they would
come back as there was nothing to come back for.

Although there was very little left
in the flat, I was afraid to leave it. The dog I had at the house
in Edgbaston had long since gone. I was worried to turn my back
on the flat so I bought a fully grown Alsatian dog from a half
caste woman who worked at the chip shop.

The woman warned me the dog could
be very aggressive but that was exactly what I was looking for,
an aggressive man-eater of a dog. This was one mean, guard dog!
The problem was he wasn't too keen on letting anyone into the
flat and that included me. After three days the dog turned on me.
I was getting ready to go out and was putting my shoes on. The
dog started jumping all over the place excitedly, obviously
wanting to go out. The dog jumped up at me, whining like a lost
puppy, but he was no puppy. He was a big dog.

"Off!" I commanded.

The dog continued jumping around. I
didn't think it wise to smack the dog after only having him for a
few days.

"Off! You stupid animal," I
ordered.

After bowing my shoes laces, I
stood up. The dog was still jumping all over the place and jumped
up at me again. This time I turned away from the dog and raised
my arm out of the way. The dog jumped up and sank his teeth in
the top of my arm and pulled me to the ground. The first bite had
punctured the muscle in the top of my arm and the fluid ran down,
leaving my arm limp and useless. I was wrestling the dog on the
ground with one arm and the weight of my body trying to hold him
down. I knew if the dog was able to get up he would have the
advantage and attack again.

Marina was in the flat at the time
and I was afraid of the dog attacking her as well as me.
Eventually I managed to throw the dog into the hallway and close
him out of the room. I tried to give the dog time to calm down. I
still couldn't lift my arm. It was hanging and flopping about
like a loose empty sleeve. In the finish, I had no choice but to
shout from the window for a neighbour to phone the police. The
dog was not going to let anyone in or out, he had turned really
nasty. A police dog handler arrived and managed to take the dog
away without any real problem and I was taken to hospital.

"The wound to your thumb is very
nasty," the doctor told me. "The wound to your arm will be ok,
provided you keep it clean, but this thumb is very nasty, he's
really chewed it up quite bad. We may need to amputate!" I could
hardly believe my ears.

"You want to chop my thumb off,
because of a bloody dog bite. You must be joking."

"Dog bites can cause some very
nasty infections and he's certainly made a meal of your thumb,"
the doctor told me. "Your thumb may become infected."

A nurse applied a clean dressing to
the wounds, "You have to come back in a week so the doctor can
take another look at it. You must keep it clean."

I never went back to the hospital
and the wounds healed up perfectly well without any drastic
action. I bought myself another dog, only this time I bought an
Alsatian puppy so that I could train the dog myself. Despite
being only fourteen weeks old this dog was a rather nasty animal
and had already bitten some guy while the previous owners had the
dog. He had already drawn blood. When he was taken out for his
walks, he would jump up to try to attack people in the street and
he was very destructive in the flat.

Laurence had moved out of the flat,
some months before the burglary, into his own flat in the Hockley
area of Birmingham. He was well settled and was taking his time
in decorating the place, just the way he wanted it. When he had
finished, he seemed to take the next six months admiring his work
of art, clearly proud of his achievements.

In comparing my brothers flat to my
own partly demolished one, I decided it was time to move on. All
the trouble I'd had, made me feel sick of this flat. I moved out
in 1984 and went to live in a private house in Oldbury, belonging
to the owner of the chip shop. The owner of the chip shop owned
three houses in Ashes Road. He and his family lived in one and
the other two were rented out privately.

Soon after moving into this house,
I bought an Alsatian bitch from a rescue centre to keep my dog
company. I thought it might help to distract the dog from ripping
the place to pieces. The dog had ripped a massive hole in my bed
and literally pulled out virtually all the stuffing and ate it.
This dog had pulled a glass bowl containing some left over mashed
potatoe onto the floor, smashing the bowl. He'd stood there and
ate the potatoe and the glass bowl! On another occasion one of
Marina's friends had been at the flat and had volunteered to do
some washing up of dishes. She took off her gold diamond and
sapphire engagement ring, leaving it on the kitchen worktop and
the bloody dog ate it! He was, without doubt, a very expensive
dog to keep and this one meal alone cost me over a hundred pound!
I could see no reason for the dogs destruction and scavenging.
The dog was very well fed with proper food and he was well cared
for, but he was eating me out of house and home,
literally!

The dog didn't like the Alsatian
bitch that I'd bought and constantly attacked it, probably wanted
to eat that too! The bitch decided she was not going to stand for
his bullying. She jumped a six-foot fence and ran away.

While working in the chip shop, I
decided to buy a better car as the old Ford Escort had become
unreliable and presented problems in getting to work in the
mornings. I bought a 1975 Morris Marina from a reputable car
dealer. Each day I drove to work from my home in Oldbury. After
work, I would go to Marina's house and drive back to the house in
Oldbury for a few hours before taking Marina back home, as she
was still not allowed to stay overnight. We had been together for
about two years when things started to go wrong and we started to
drift apart. I was getting tired of driving back and forth
several times a day and having to race my sex life, and my
driving. Marina was not allowed to stay at my house overnight and
the constant running about became exhausting. I stayed away from
Marina's house and appeared at her door again a week
later.

"What do you want?" Marina
asked.

"Let him in Marina and don't be so
rude," came her mothers voice from the kitchen.

Marina swung open the door and left
me to go into her mothers ever smiling face, while she retreated
to another room. I sat and had a drink with her mother who wanted
to hear some explanation as to why I hadn't been to see her
daughter. As my words left my mouth, even I realized just how
pitiful they sounded. I was truly sorry, but didn't want to say
so. I went into the living room and sat down next to Marina, who
immediately got up and went to sit in a chair.

"What do you want?" Marina asked,
talking down her nose at me.

"We can sort this out," I said, "I
was just overtired and needed some rest."

"Well, go home and get some sleep,"
she snapped. "We're finished!" I pleaded with her on bended knee,
but she was a heartless bitch. I left the house wishing I'd never
stayed away at all.

Things started going downhill
rapidly after that and the life I had was crumbling around me. I
lost my job in the chip shop. The manager discovered that I'd
been using the phone in the shop to arrange bookings for the
discos, without his consent.

A few days later I went out in the
car, in the snow and ice and skidded into the back of a
stationary car. The damage to the other car was only a broken
glass in a tail light. My own car was a wreck. The front wing had
completely crumpled right up against the door. I paid the owner
of the escort £50.00 in cash for the damage I had done to his
car. I didn't want any problems from insurance claims. I had
never had a driving lesson in my life and had taken and failed my
driving test on the one and only occasion that I tried to become
legal on the road. I had driven about six cars, on a provisional
license and was insured in someone elses name, so I tried to
avoid any accident claims, or any questions from the
police.

Everything seemed to be going wrong
at the same time. I had lost my girlfriend and my job. My dog had
mysteriously disappeared, I had been given notice to quit the
house and now I had wrecked my car. I went to the pub and got
drunk. I returned home, got into the car and finished it
off.

Christmas was approaching and the
depression had already set in. My whole world was falling apart,
everything crumbling around me. I knew most people were making
plans and getting ready for the Christmas festivities. I
considered Christmas to be the worst time of year, I felt so
isolated and so alone and I hated it.

Shortly before Christmas, I went
out to the car in the middle of the night and calmly shoved a
piece of hose pipe up the exhaust tailpipe and the other end to
the inside of the car. I climbed into the car and started the
engine. My feelings for Marina had grown quite strong and I had
grown to love her. I felt so very lost. I felt as if my mother
had completely wrecked my entire life. I could not cope with the
life I had, a life I never really wanted. What happened to my
childhood, why didn't I have one?

I sat in my car drinking a can of
lager. I could feel the poisonous gases of the exhaust fumes
building up inside the car, choking the life out of me. My
stomach started churning, heaving and I started to feel very
sick. I was coughing and choking violently. I felt very dizzy and
my head was so very heavy. I could feel my life being drained
away, slowly suffocating myself to death. My grandfather and
uncle had both committed suicide in this way so I knew my chance
of success was. . .

I woke up in Sandwell General
Hospital about twelve days later. The doctors made constant
checks on me, checking for any heart, lung or brain
damage.

"Hello. Do you know where you are?"
the doctor asked.

I couldn't see properly and wasn't
with it at all. I was in the intensive care unit, looking at the
ceiling but my mind was not functioning. The doctors returned
later in the day. I really thought I was actually dead.

"Do you know where you are?" I
could see a ghostly figure standing over me.

"Do you know where you are?" he
asked again. I looked at the ghostly figure, standing in
white.

"I must be in Heaven."

The doctor looked into the my eyes,
shining a torch into them. "What is your name?" he asked.

I had no idea. I couldn't remember.
My memory had completely gone. I had no recollection of anything.
After a while the memory of what I had done started to return and
the thoughts came flooding back into my head.

"I'm still bloody alive. Why can't
people just sodding leave me alone to die in peace?" I was so
disappointed and sorry to be alive!

My father came to see me at the
hospital. The hospital staff had found his telephone number
amongst papers I had in my wallet after being admitted. My father
was very upset and angry with what I had done.

My landlord and his wife, Kashmir,
also came to see me. "It was me who found you," Kashmir said. She
appeared very upset.

"You were dead," she explained.
"When the ambulance arrived you were not breathing and I was
trying to save you. The ambulance men said your heart had stopped
beating. They had to put some 'electric pads' (fast patches) on
you and had to shock you back to life."

"I came with you to the hospital
and your heart kept stopping in the ambulance. You were dead when
you arrived at the hospital. Everyone was running around. It was
very frightening," she said.

On Christmas eve, I was released
from the hospital and collected by Beverley's father-in- law.
Beverley had married her long standing boyfriend, John, after
becoming pregnant. They married in 1983 and my sister gave birth
to their daughter, whom they named Stacey.

My father had left my mother very
shortly after Michele's death. He was settled with another lady,
June. Laurence was settled in his flat. He seemed to be smothered
by friends while living at my flat but most of them rarely
bothered with him after he moved from Ladywood. My brother
visited my sister almost every day. My mother had successfully
driven everyone away and was living on her own, although Laurence
and Beverley did visit her occasionally. I believed my mother was
happy enough. She had a house full of furniture, which my father
was still paying for and nobody around to make bits on the
carpet. I certainly didn't have any sympathy for my
mother.

I spent Christmas at Beverley's
home in Chelmsley Wood, with Bev, John, Stacey and Laurence. I
could see that I had ruined their Christmas and was really very
sorry about that. They never took their eyes off me as they knew
sooner or later I would try again.

The Christmas passed without any
real fuss or celebrations. Knowing that I was responsible for
ruining their Christmas made me feel worse. Laurence insisted
that I move into his flat in the new year and I spent the whole
of 1985 at my brothers flat. Laurence was very angry with me and
was trying to keep me alive. As Laurence only had a one bedroom
flat, I slept on the settee in the living room while my own
furnishings remained in Oldbury. Laurence would not let me out of
his sight for any length of time. Every time he went out, I went
with him. I could see my brother was concerned about me but my
feelings were very deep and powerful. My wish to die was
constant.

While living at my brothers flat, I
climbed out of the twelfth floor window while my brother slept in
the next room. I sat on the two-inch wide window ledge but could
not find the courage to jump.

'What if I jump and I don't die?
I'd be a cabbage for the rest of my life, ' I thought.

All my thoughts were negative and I
couldn't find the courage to jump. I sat on the ledge thinking if
I were to fall asleep, I would just fall off. I was so very
desperately miserable and empty. My life had no meaning or
purpose. Some days later, I took two bottles of sleeping tablets
which I obtained from doctors prescription. The doctor was aware
of my suicidal tendencies and the tablets he prescribed had no
effect at all.

I had applied to the council for a
flat of my own, but in reality I didn't want to be on my own.
While at my brothers flat I just sat around most of the time,
doing nothing. I rarely spoke to my brother or any visitors who
visited the flat. Laurence didn't want me to die and was afraid
to let me out of his sight, but he was also getting fed up of me
being constantly around him.

"You don't need to keep watching me
and can't change the way I feel," I told him. "You can't stop me
from dying. We both know it's going to happen, it's just a matter
of when, where and how."

Eventually I did try to get myself
out of the severe depressive state I was in and tried to stop my
brother from constantly worrying. By the time Christmas had
arrived once more, Laurence had eased off a little and I started
to show a slight improvement. Laurence went to Bev's for
Christmas and I stayed at my brothers flat. I took Marina a
Christmas present on Christmas eve and she returned it with her
new boyfriend and her brother on Christmas day. I had not seen
Marina since we had split up and I was missing her quite a lot. I
felt very hurt by the return of the gift. I was so very depressed
and lonely. I sat in the flat on my own drinking, staring at the
television, absorbing nothing.